He tried to tell US officials at LAX airport that the term “destroy” was British slang for partying, but as anyone who has ever been stopped by US immigration knows these people have a low tolerance, while on the job, for humour of any kind.

The supposed moral of this story is to be careful what you tweet. The real moral of the story is that a country that styles itself as the great democratic paragon needs to take a good hard look at itself before it goes spunking bullets at regimes it doesn’t like.

If the Walkman had, by default, silently contacted your friends and told them what you were listening to, not only would no one have bought a Walkman in the first place, its designers would have been viewed with the utmost suspicion.